Beaconsfield miner Larry Knight’s message from beyond the grave

LAUREN Charlton’s most precious possession is a message she received from her father Larry Knight after he died in the Beaconsfield Gold Mine tragedy.

THE message she received from her father’s grave is one of Lauren Charlton’s most precious possessions.

When she arrived home from the funeral of her dad, Larry Knight — the third Beaconsfield miner, who died after a mini earthquake buried the men of almost a kilometre underground — a sympathy card was waiting for her.

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Larry had sent it, possibly on the day he was killed, to his faraway and beloved daughter, to try to cheer her up.

“I had spoken to him on the phone about a week prior because my grandfather had passed away the week before my dad,” said Lauren, who lived with her mother and Larry’s ex-wife in Queensland.

The card Larry Knight sent his daughter Lauren Charlton before his death. Picture: Jonathon Searle.

“After I got home, after the funeral, there was actually a card in mailbox from dad. It was bizarre. It was a sympathy card that he had posted and it said “Those that we love never really leave us”.

“It was a terrible month. Grandad had died on Easter Sunday and Dad went on Anzac Day.”

Lauren described the days after the mine collapse as torment.

The then 19-year-old rushed to join the vigil alongside Larry’s Launceston-based family, including his partner, Jackie, and two sons Tom and Addison.

But shortly after her arrival came the terrible news that a body had been found by one of the rescue teams.

“At that point I thought: ‘They’re all gone, they’re all dead — that’s it, it’s all over,” she recalls.

“When they then identified Dad, I was actually relieved. I thought they had found him and I just assumed they would never find the other bodies so I felt kind of selfishly, well, at least we have our answers.”

Knight lost his life following the collapse at the Beaconsfield Gold Mine.

Charlton cherishes the card she received from her father. Picture: Jonathon Searle.

When the other miners were discovered to have survived, Lauren said she wasn’t proud of her reaction.

“When the other two turned out be alive, I felt a little bit, well, ripped off,” she said.

“That sounds disgusting now because they are both wonderful men and I’ve spent time with them and got to know them but, at that time, I felt it was a little unfair.”

The precarious rescue mission for Webb and Russell was particularly hard for Larry Knight’s family, who decided not to hold his funeral until his workmates were free and could attend.

“It was a long time having to wait, especially really hard on all the other family as well, they just wanted to be able to bury him to put him to rest,” Lauren said.

“But they all agreed it would be the right thing to do to wait until the others were safe.”

Originally published as Beaconsfield miner Larry Knight’s message from beyond the grave